DEREK SAYER, "Prague, Capital of the Twentieth Century: A Surrealist History"

Derek Sayer, author of Prague, Capital of the Twentieth Century: A Surrealist History (Princeton, 2013) will be speaking about the interwar connections between Paris and Prague, permeability in European Modernism and about Czech Modernism in particular. From the jacket: 

"Setting out to recover the roots of modernity in the boulevards, interiors, and arcades of the "city of light," Walter Benjamin dubbed Paris "the capital of the nineteenth century." In this eagerly anticipated sequel to his acclaimed Coasts of Bohemia: A Czech History, Derek Sayer argues that Prague could well be seen as the capital of the much darker twentieth century. Ranging across twentieth-century Prague's astonishingly vibrant and always surprising human landscape, this richly illustrated cultural history describes how the city has experienced (and suffered) more ways of being modern than perhaps any other metropolis." 

Sayer is Professor of Cultural History at Lancaster University and a former Canada Research Chair at the University of Alberta. He is also a a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.